“Problematic relations between the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice stand out amidst the broader tumult of President Donald Trump’s first year in office. With respect to written policy restricting contacts between the White House staff and the Department, the Trump White House has followed the general contours of predecessor administrations. Those policies recognize that White House contacts restrictions vary with the Department’s complex functions, restrict channels of contact, and restrict personnel authorized to make contacts. They also grant limited exceptions where White House-Department contact is required to assist the President in the performance of a constitutional duty and contact would be appropriate from a law enforcement perspective. A number of episodes, however, suggest that the President and senior administration officials have not honored the spirit, and in some cases the letter, of that contacts policy.

One of the frequent criticisms leveled against President Trump is that he disregards many norms and traditions that have been observed by presidential administrations of both parties for decades. Restrictions on White House interference in criminal investigations do not merely protect norms. Rather, those policies also seek to prevent unconstitutional conduct by the President and his political appointees. This Article demonstrates that political interference by the President undertaken in bad faith could violate the Take Care Clause even in the absence of a criminal statute. Obstructive behavior is even worse. Whether or not the President is indictable for the commission of a statutory criminal offense of obstruction of justice during his tenure in office, this Article explains why the President may violate the Take Care Clause independently of criminal offenses.

A principle of political noninterference by the White House in the federal prosecution function in particular matters is consistent with Article II. Neither the Vesting Clause, the President’s position atop the Executive Branch, nor the President’s broader enforcement discretion defeat the anti-interference principles commanded by the Presidential Oath and the Take Care Clause. It is a question that goes to the very concept of Rule of Law itself. However, political processes, rather than justiciable legal proceedings, serve as the presumptive source of Take Care Clause enforcement as to White House-Department relations.”

Washington Post: MAJETE WILDLIFE RESERVE, Malawi – “Two decades ago, this patch of Malawian forest was almost emptied of wildlife. The last elephants had been poached. The lions had been caught in snare traps. Other species died off as their range was diced by machete-wielding farmers. Now the animals have returned in a modern-day Noah’s… Continue Reading

“The Maryland Department of Natural Resources launched an innovative new tool to evaluate the conservation benefits and ecosystem “value” of every parcel of land across the state. The Parcel Evaluation Tool was designed to identify and prioritize the conservation and protection of ecologically important, sensitive, and valuable land and watershed resources in Maryland for use by the department, land… Continue Reading

‘Too inconvenient’: Trump goes rogue on phone security – The president has kept features at risk for hacking and resisted efforts by staff to inspect the phones he uses for tweeting. “President Donald Trump uses a White House cellphone that isn’t equipped with sophisticated security features designed to shield his communications, according to two senior… Continue Reading

Carbon Black: “Despite investing heavily in security, financial institutions continue to experience cyber attacks at a rapid pace. Conducted primarily for the purpose of yielding illicit financial gain, cyber attacks against the financial services industry are increasing in sophistication and are often undetectable, global and instantaneous. This will be one of the themes of this… Continue Reading

Motherboard: This story is part of When Spies Come Home, a Motherboard series about powerful surveillance software ordinary people use to spy on their loved ones. “The Internet Archive’s goal, according to its website, is “universal access to all knowledge.” As part of that mission, the non-profit runs the Wayback Machine, an online tool that… Continue Reading

David Brock, Computer History Museum: “The experience of women, and the issues of gender and sexuality, are vitally important to our understanding of the story of computing, and hence our contemporary world, for many reasons. Perhaps most straightforwardly, women have been ubiquitous throughout the history of computing as makers and users of it. As Eileen… Continue Reading

AP: “The Trump administration is moving to reverse Obama-era rules barring hunters on some public lands in Alaska from baiting brown bears with bacon and doughnuts and using spotlights to shoot mother black bears and cubs hibernating in their dens. The National Park Service issued a notice Monday of its intent to amend regulations for… Continue Reading

CRS report via FAS – False Statements and Perjury: An Overview of Federal Criminal Law, Charles Doyle, Senior Specialist in American Public Law. May 11, 2018. “Special Counsel Robert Mueller reportedly warned President Trump’s lawyers in a March meeting that if the President declined to participate in a voluntary interview, Mueller could issue a subpoena… Continue Reading

The Verge: “Documents obtained by the ACLU of Northern California have shed new light on Rekognition, Amazon’s little-known facial recognition project. Rekognition is currently used by police in Orlando and Oregon’s Washington County, often using nondisclosure agreements to avoid public disclosure. The result is a powerful real-time facial recognition system that can tap into police… Continue Reading

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Sabrina is also the solo Editor, Publisher and Founder of LLRX.com® – Legal, technology and knowledge discovery resources on the “moving edge” for Librarians, Lawyers, Researchers, Academic and Public Interest Communities – launched in 1996.